XCOM: Enemy Unknown
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Page 99

Any tips for starting location on a Classic Ironman? I've given up trying to do an impossible ironman, wayyy too many troopers die and any abduction sites that get ignored insta-panic which is starting to grate on my nerves. Impossible shouldn't mean that my Grunts can't hit a barn door at 10 paces however

If God said “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you,” to Mary - does that mean he loves bukkake?

@LeoliansBro - Cheers buddy, the base building and management is fine. It's just when the game decides to warp a few crysalids to a tile adjacent to my troops on the very first terror mission that I become stuck. Shooting down the UFO's and consequently raiding them has never been an issue and the 2nd Wave thang really helps when creating a new squad (regularly get snipers with 95+ aim and 60+ will, which is nice until they get 1 shotted).
I find that the first few missions the game throws at you are always the hardest, later in the game the invasions and the missions get far less frequent. What's with that???

Edited by Elathron at 11:13:04 16-01-2013

If God said “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you,” to Mary - does that mean he loves bukkake?

@LeoliansBro - That was my issue, on Ironman, my assault guys (in fact, everyone) seemed to be unable to hit the damned things despite having an 80+% cahnce to hit them (even upon a cheeky reset console). Even worse when the other one of the pair runs to the top floor and starts converting civilians into chryssalid clones.
I 'spose I'll just have to pray that the first terror mission comes after I've researhced lasers - assault rifles really are crap lol.

If God said “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you,” to Mary - does that mean he loves bukkake?

PenguinJim wrote:
pretending that they don't exist and that they don't affect game experiences is hardly constructive.

Sorry I wasn't trying to imply they don't exist, in fact I even mentioned that I had one of those very bugs. I was trying to get across that they don't appear as much as I, at least, though they would after reading the forums. I was put off going Ironman because of the reported bugs but haven’t had a problem with them. That was it.

Anyway onto other topics,

Soldiers doing useful thing when panicking always entertains me. I’ve had a couple of examples when a guy panics; shoots out of sequence and deals with the problem himself there and then. Of course I’ve also had the guy with the shotgun flanking the alien deciding that the best course of action is to run away and hide. It really does get the heartbeat going when one your solider picks up his guy and you have no idea who he is pointing it at.

Starting locations, Do you always start on a high value country in Asia? The advantage of North America is that you are always in the US which gets you a lot of cash in month one – unless you are playing with random cash. The NA bonus also saves you 20 a month out of the box and if you end with 2 basic inceptors everywhere that’s 100 a month which adds up and 200 lump sum as well.

Yup, the reload thing works if you press the Xbox guide button during the enemy turn. It reloads at the start of your previous turn (before you've moved) so you can kinda God mode it a little if the game decides to teleport 9 enemies in front of (or behind in some cases) you on turn 3. In fact, that's happened so many times on Classic/Impossible; enemies just randomly spawned behind me despite me having clear lines of sight to the areas where they were appearing. My poor guys ended up getting flanked by 5/9 (depending on how many they could take out the following turn) sectoids or thin men who would proceed to not miss once and critical hit my troops for a single turn of many-death. Which generally forced me to rage quit.

Edited by Elathron at 12:30:13 16-01-2013

If God said “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you,” to Mary - does that mean he loves bukkake?

Here's a good tip. You know how when your squaddies panic, they seem to become amazingly accurate shooters and often nail any alien within LoS? Well, if at some point you are offered the ability to bestow the same state of mind (and accuracy) upon your enemy, you'd best not.

@Bremenacht - Haha. Psy panic isn't all that bad actually, I've used it a few times to great advantage. Usually on Chryssalids and Berzerkers, but a few Ethereals have ended up abandoning their bodyguards in favour of getting the f**k outta there.
I finally got a good start on Classic Ironman, although the game is trying to saturate me with assault troops; not such a bad thing seeing as they tend to stay alive the longest. Started in Asia & immediately filled North America with Satellites to get the monies and savings. Had the fortune of having 2 steam vents next to one another, right by the lift too YAY! Go my all American accented, "multinational" team...

If God said “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you,” to Mary - does that mean he loves bukkake?

@basmans_grob - I don't keep assault troopers alive, the game does! Plus it helps that they get so many defensive bonuses. Oh, and the free shot at anything that gets too close is a life-saver - so many times something has appeared from nowhere, only to be met with buckshot to the face! Plus the fact that I give my assault troops rifles depending on the scenario, which means they're not always running in and getting shot at by 3/9 aliens at a time. TBH they're actually better than the support class in building based missions due to the above reasons too.

If God said “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you,” to Mary - does that mean he loves bukkake?

Elathron wrote:
Had the fortune of having 2 steam vents next to one another, right by the lift too YAY!

That's a good tip. I restarted my CI games a few times in an effort to get steam vents in a good position. A bit of a drag to start with, but you save quite a bit of cash when you don't have to dig deep and far.

@Bremenacht - Yups, also I found that not researching the Xeno Biology straight away left me with easier missions. If you ignore the priority missions the game takes a little longer before that first terror mission. I was able to field a full "laser squad" against those bloody Chryssalids and they ended up charred meat in no time. Also, this play-through is saturating me assault troops. And The Close Combat Specialist perk is absolutely essential for keeping troopers alive. One guy with a scatter laser managed to kill 3 Thin Men as soon as they appeared (in the enemy turn too - how handy...) like some reincarnation of a Spaghetti Western. The last point I'd like to make is that having a blob of 4 workshops is essential for the beginning of the game, getting back 28% resources from engineering tasks really does make a huge difference. Question though, if you make enough to get 100% back (not that I would), does that mean you get back things like alien power sources etc?

If God said “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you,” to Mary - does that mean he loves bukkake?

@TOOTR - Err. Use Psi Panic on the offending alien. A mind fray first will help it succeed. If your first trooper in has a mind shield and psi armour + sufficiently high will (90+ as a rule...); that will also help prevent any psi attacks. I use an assault guy with the above, plus all the defensive perks and he only evet gets controlled 25% of the time.

If God said “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you,” to Mary - does that mean he loves bukkake?

Elathron wrote:
@Bremenacht - Yups, also I found that not researching the Xeno Biology straight away left me with easier missions. If you ignore the priority missions the game takes a little longer before that first terror mission.

I'm not sure about that. What difficulty are you on? I restarted my CI games many times, with most ending in month 3 regardless of the strategies I took in the base. Not saying you're wrong - I just didn't notice. I'm using that stategy on my current game, so I'll pay attention this time.

Elathron wrote:
The last point I'd like to make is that having a blob of 4 workshops is essential for the beginning of the game, getting back 28% resources from engineering tasks really does make a huge difference. Question though, if you make enough to get 100% back (not that I would), does that mean you get back things like alien power sources etc?

When I was doing well and had a bundle of cash, I filled the base to see if there was an achievement for it (there isn't). I had about 7 or 8 workshops, I think, and got a 10% rebate.

Finished CI the other night. Before the end, I had a spare heavy so I sent him off on that Solo achievement and almost got it. The Ethereal, Heavy Floaters, and all but one Muton were dispatched. This last Muton had been mainflayed twice and possessed three times, so he was putty. And yet, the fucker developed super-snipe powers and offed my heavy in three consecutive shots. Bah.

Throughly enjoying Impossible at the moment. They joy of being able to reload a pear-shaped mission. This game has legs.